The construction of multiple personae by musicians is a practice that continues to be
prevalent: from Robert Schumann, through David Bowie, to recent techno artists. In
this article I examine the work of one artist who may be music's most
prodigious multiple and who may be deemed not one, but many different artists.
Techno-chameleon Uwe Schmidt, aka Señor Coconut, aka Geeez
‘n’ Gosh, is a musician who has radically intensified the
creation of multiple personae and here I situate his work as part of a contemporary
technocultural moment; one where recent technologies have further enabled,
destigmatized, and for some individuals, made preferable or even necessary, the idea
of the performed, multiple identity. As such, by enacting certain key concepts of a
postmodern and/or posthuman conception of identity, artists like Schmidt thus
problematize traditional modes of artistic representation, marketing, and reception
that were previously based upon notions of individual authorship.
Anonymous
(2003a) ‘Review of El Baile Alemán by
Señor Coconut Y Su Conjunto’, Almost
Cool, URL (consulted 5 December 2003): http://www.almostcool.org/mr/s/s38mu.html
2.
Anonymous
(2003b) ‘Review of Templates by
Flanger’, Bookworms, URL (consulted 5 December 2003): http://shop.bookworms.org/aws.cgi/mode_music/search_Templates
3.
Anonymous
(2003c) ‘Review of Trio De Janeiro by The Lisa
Carbon Trio’, Forced Exposure, URL (consulted 5
December 2003): http://www.forcedexposure.com/artists.lisa.carbon.trio.html
4.
Anonymous
(2003d) ‘Señor Coconut Fusing
Kraftwerk With Latin Beats, review of El Baile Alemán by
Señor Coconut Y Su Conjunto’,
ChartAttack, URL (consulted 5 December 2003): http://www.chart%20attack.com/damn/2000/12/2102.cfm
5.
Auner, Joseph
(2003)
‘“Sing it For Me”: Posthuman Ventriloquism in
Recent Popular Music’
, Journal of the Royal Musical Association128(1):
98–122
.
6.
Born, Georgina
(1995) ‘Subjectivities: Difference and
Fragmentation’, in
Georgina BornRationalizing Culture: IRCAM Boulez and the Institutionalization of the Musical
Avant-Garde, pp. 279–307.
Berkeley: University of California Press
.
7.
Butler, Judith
(1991) ‘Imitation and Gender
Insubordination’, in
Diana Fuss
(ed.) Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories, pp.
13–31.
London and New York: Routledge
.
8.
Cooper, Paul
(2003) ‘Review of Nobody Knows by Geeez
‘n’ Gosh’, Pitchfork Media,
URL (consulted 5 December 2003): http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/g/geeez-n-gosh/nobody-knows.shtml
9.
Fiske, John
(1987)
‘TV: Resituating the Popular in the People’
, Continuum: The Australian Journal of Media & Culture1(2), URL (consulted April 2006): http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/1.2/Fiske.%20html
Geeez ‘n’ Gosh
(2002) ‘Nobody Knows’,
Mille Plateaux, MP111CD.
12.
Geeez ‘n’ Gosh
(2003) Interview with Patrick Vandenberghe,
Atom-Heart Online, URL (consulted 5 December 2003): http://www.atomheart.com/news/2002/text/uzine/geeez/interview/index.html
13.
Gilbert, Jeremy
and
Pearson, Ewan
(1999) ‘Metal Machine Musics: Technology,
Subjectivity and Reception’, in Discographies: Dance
Music, Culture and the Politics of Sound, pp.
110–145.
London and New York: Routledge
.
14.
Hayles, N. Katherine
(1999) How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in
Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press
.
15.
Hollings, Ken
(2002)
‘Robot in Disguise’
, Wire Magazine223 (September).
16.
Jameson, Frederic
(1983) ‘Postmodernism and Consumer
Society’, in
Hal Foster
(ed.) The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, pp.
111–125.
Seattle: Bay Press
.
17.
Lyotard, Jean-François
(1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge.
Manchester: Manchester University Press
. Reprinted Online, Marxists.org, URL (consulted 8 September 2004): http:%20//www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/lyotard.htm
18.
McLuhan, Marshall
(1994) Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man.
Cambridge: MIT Press
.
19.
Miller, Christopher
(2004a) ‘AtomTM (Heart)’,
Atom-Heart, URL (consulted 4 January 2004): http://%20atom-heart.com/
20.
Miller, Christopher
(2004b) ‘AtomTM Discography
Website’, Hyperreal, URL (consulted 4 January 2004): http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/atom_heart/
21.
Morgan, Robert
(1988) ‘Tradition, Anxiety and the Current
Musical Scene’, in Nicholas Kenyon (ed.)
Authenticity in Early Music, pp.
57–82.
Oxford: Oxford University Press
.
22.
Pavel, Curtis
(1996) ‘Mudding: Social Phenomena in Text-Based
Virtual Realities’, in Mark Stefik (ed.)
Internet Dreams, pp. 265–292.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
.
23.
Plant, Sadie
(1997) Zeros and Ones: Digital Women and the New
Technoculture.
New York: Doubleday
.
24.
Richard-San, Mark
(2003) ‘Review of Midnight Sound, by
Flanger’, Pitchfork Media, URL (consulted 10 December
2003): http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/f/flanger/midnight-sound.shtml
25.
Scanland, Dennis
(2003) ‘Review of Outer Space/Inner Space, by
Flanger’, MusicEmmisions, URL (consulted 5 December
2003): http://www.musicemissions.com/display_review/93
26.
Schmidt, Uwe
(2003) ‘My Nite With Uwe’, Interview
with Gary Videla, Fax & Rather Interesting Galleria,
URL (consulted 5 December 2003): http://www.usatt.org/rseguine/FAX/
27.
Seguine, Roy
(2003) ‘Fax Facts’, Fax
and Rather Interesting Galleria, URL (consulted 12 December 2003): http://www.usatt.org/rseguine/FAX/
28.
Señor Coconut Y Su Conjunto (2000) El Baile
Alemán. Emperor Norton 7028.
29.
Soules, Marshall
(1997–2001) ‘Identity and Performance in
Cyberspace’, URL (consulted 10 December 2003): http://www.mala.bc.ca/soules/media113/netself.htm
30.
Stone, Allucquére Rosanne
(1995) The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the
Mechanical Age.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
.
31.
Straw, Will
(1999) ‘Authorship’, in
Bruce Horner
and
Thomas Swiss
(eds) Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture, pp.
199–208.
Malden: Blackwell Press
.
32.
Taylor, Timothy D.
(2001) ‘Music at Home, Politics
Afar’, in Strange Sounds: Music, Technology, and
Culture, pp. 136–164.
New York and London: Routledge Press
.
33.
Turkle, Sherry
(1995) Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of
Internet.
New York: Simon & Schuster
.
34.
Turkle, Sherry
(1996)
‘Who Am We’
, Wired4(1), URL (consulted 28 February 2006): http://www.%20wired.com/wired/archive/4.01/turkle.html
35.
Varkentine, Ben
(2003) ‘Review of Midnight Sound by
Flanger’, Pop Matters, URL (consulted 5 December
2003): http://www.popmatters.com/music/reviews/f/flanger-midnight.html
36.
Wikipedia
(2004) ‘Uwe Schmidt’, URL
(consulted 5 December 2004): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uwe_%20Schmidt
